


Never Been Here Before

by walkthegale



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Dancing, F/F, Families of Choice, Femslash, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Pre-Poly, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 02:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16188482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkthegale/pseuds/walkthegale
Summary: Beau doesn’t know how to keep them all safe.





	Never Been Here Before

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silly_cleo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silly_cleo/gifts).



> Thank you so much to cosmic_llin and shinyjenni for betaing this for me and having excellent suggestions!

There’s blood in Beau’s eyes and she doesn’t see the blow coming. It catches her on the side of the head and the whole world whips around her. A little way away, she sees Jester drop to the floor, wreathed in dark, crackling energy that isn’t her own. And then everything blurs and she’s down on her knees, down on her face on the cool earth, and then sinking into endless black where she is nothing and knows nothing and feels nothing.

When Beau next opens her eyes, her head feels like someone stuffed it full of feathers. Pulsing, painful feathers.

It takes her a moment, but eventually her brain unscrambles enough to work out that there’s a bed underneath her, that the glaring, fractured light is the moon through a window, and that nothing is attacking her right now this minute, so she’s probably in a room at an inn somewhere. On her own.

She always shares a room with Jester. They’re roomies. That’s what they do. She’s in a room at an inn and there’s no one else here, and now she remembers Jester on the ground, her body jerking and going limp as the spell tore through her.

Beau is in a room on her own, and maybe Jester is dead. And maybe the others have left her here because Jester is dead. Or maybe they’re all dead too.

She feels sick, and a lot of her hurts, and her eyes seem to have closed without her meaning them to. The feathers in her head are getting denser, and thinking through them is so hard.

Beau drifts, and in the dark, she dreams.

_Caleb, burning in his own fire until there’s nothing left. Nott caught in a trap, all her frenetic movement stilled._

When Beau wakes again, she doesn’t let herself remember.

Her head feels clearer now, and her body hurts less. A lot less, she realises - less than it really should. She opens her eyes to the gentle glow of a healing spell, the hum of Jester’s magic warm and familiar all around her. She wants to lean into the feeling of it, let herself sink into it deep and safe, forever.

“Pretty powerful spell you’re using just to fix me up,” she manages to say instead, though it comes out as a dry croak. “You sure you’re not gonna need that to kick someone’s ass later on?”

Jester, kneeling on the ground next to Beau’s bed, grins and lifts one of her hands away from Beau’s shoulder long enough to grab a mug of water and hand it to her. “I can heal you _and_ kick asses. I’m pretty strong now, you know.”

Beau shifts, testing and stretching out her limbs one at a time, feeling for pain in her muscles, before gingerly pulling herself into a sitting position to drink some water.

“Is, uh,” she finally dares to ask. “Is everyone…?” Her throat feels raw and there’s a heat behind her eyes that she refuses to acknowledge.

Jester doesn’t leave her hanging. “Everyone is ok, Beau,” she tells her. “Caduceus healed me, and Caleb made a lot of fire, and we won, and then we brought you back here. We’re all ok.”

Beau breathes relief through every pore of her body, but there are tear tracks on Jester’s cheeks, and a weight pressing on Beau’s chest that she can’t shake.

***

They leave the village they were staying in the next morning, carrying on up this unknown coast, their way bounded by mountains to the left, and the endless sea forever to their right. Jester sits in the cart, chatting to Nott and swinging her legs through the enchantment on it so that she’s only visible below the knees, two incongruous waving boots.

Beau walks today, at the horses’ heads. She feels bruised all over, but the steady throb of pain grounds her with each step. Keeps her present, here on the road with her friends who are still alive, no matter how badly she fucked up. Fjord walks with her, and neither of them is inclined to talk. Beau wonders if he was the one who carried her back to the inn last night. She doesn’t ask.

That evening they make camp in their usual fashion, a little way from the road and sheltered from the relentless wind off the sea. Beau takes first watch with Caleb, but after it passes uneventfully, she finds she can’t sleep, her body fizzing with a wild, frantic energy that she can’t source.

She slips out of her bedroll and away from the campfire, quiet as a cat in the dark.

Down on the beach, the moon just bright enough that she doesn’t really need her goggles, she goes through her drills. Once, twice, but the energy still bubbles through her, still pulls her body to do more, to do _better_. Again from the top, stretching and kicking and jabbing at the air, spinning in circles until sweat drenches her shirt but it’s still not enough. She’s not enough.

They’re safe, for now, but she wasn’t fucking fast enough. She wishes Yasha was with them, but she doesn’t know if it would help. What if she’s not fast enough again. What if next time they’re not ok.

Punch. Spin. High kick. Flip.

And stop dead, her arm raised to strike.

Jester grins at her from a little distance away. “You have really good reflexes,” she observes, “but you’re not paying much attention. I wasn’t being very quiet.”

Beau shoves her hair out of her face where it’s come loose from her topknot. “Wasn’t expecting anyone.”

“Me and Fjord and Yasha weren’t expecting anyone either when they got us,” Jester says. She moves closer so Beau can see her face, and her eyes are harder than Beau has maybe ever seen them. “You’re not supposed to leave the camp at night on your own, Beau. None of us are. You know that. You told me that.”

Beau wants to swear at her and stalk away. They’ve all started to get complacent, in the time that’s passed. It’s not just her. She wants to tell Jester that she can look after herself, she doesn’t need any of them.

She looks at her feet, toes bare in the damp sand. “Yeah, I know,” she says. “Sorry.”

She can’t stop seeing it. Every time she closes her eyes. Every time she dreams.

_Fjord with water filling up his nose, mouth, lungs, until his breath stops, his voice stops. Caduceus eaten away by beetles and mold and earth, bone showing through cooling flesh._

Jester steps in closer, until Beau can hear her breathing over the constant rush of the sea.

“I’m strong, you know,” she says.

Beau nods, caught wordless in the intensity of her gaze. She knows Jester by now. She knows how she can pin you in place with sheer force of personality and then let you go so you feel like you’ve fallen from a great height. Beau falls willingly, every time.

“I mean,” Jester goes on, “the Traveler helps me be strong and good at magic, but I’m _strong_ too, like Yasha. Look at these arms!” She grins, wide and disarming, and flexes her arms, and Beau can see hard muscles under softness and fuck but she might never stop looking.

Jester looks at Beau for a quiet moment, and Beau is seized by the urge to show off. She tamps it down hard. Jester’s seen her be an idiot enough times before, she doesn’t need to see it again now. Jester’s eyes are bluer even than her skin is. Bluer even than the sea under the brightest sun.

“Would you show me how to hit things, Beau?”

Beau stares. “The fuck?”

Jester tilts her head, talks fast, like she wants to get the words out before she can’t. “When they took me, they took away my voice. I couldn’t call the Traveler, and I couldn’t stop them. If I could hit things like you can, I might have stopped them. Probably, I would have stopped them.”

_And then Molly would still be alive._

Beau’s brain fills in the end of the sentence for her, without letting her squash it down. She’s grateful she didn’t say it out loud, because it’s not Jester’s fault. It’s not Yasha’s fault either, or Fjord’s. It’s not even her own fault, not really, because she was asleep and she didn’t know, and because they followed as fast as they could and because they didn’t fucking know what they were walking into.

But maybe if she’d been faster. Maybe if she’d been better. Maybe if Jester had known how to punch the shit out of her captor. Maybe.

“Sure,” she says. “I can teach you some moves, if you want.” She thinks for a moment. “I’d ask to learn some of your magic stuff, but I’m pretty sure your god isn’t going to want to talk to me.”

Jester smiles, softer now. “The Traveler would help you if you wanted, I know he would, but I don’t think you really want it, you know? Anyway, you can do some magic stuff already, I’ve seen it.” She gestures at Beau’s hands. “You can hit things and do some magic like that, right?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess. Not as cool as your magic though.”

“It’s really cool, Beau, it’s just different is all.”

Beau’s not blushing. She’s just not. “So l, uh, anyway, you want to learn to hit stuff. Maybe we could have a lesson tomorrow? I’d say now, but it’s late and sparring can get kind of loud…”

“Oh, yes.” Jester really is very close to her still, Beau realises. “I suppose you’re right. If they heard us, they might think we were doing something else.”

Beau’s breath catches somewhere in her chest, and for a moment, she can’t move, can’t think. She looks at Jester’s smiling mouth, full lips and the tiny tips of sharp teeth, and oh _fuck_.

It’s not that she didn’t already know she wanted to kiss Jester, but she doesn’t think she’s ever wanted to kiss Jester quite this badly. Nor has she ever wondered quite this hard if maybe Jester isn't just flirting the way she does with everyone, if maybe Jester wants to kiss her too.

She almost leans in. Almost. She can feel Jester’s breath against her cheek, and _shit shit shit_ , she really wants to. But she’s never had a friend like Jester before, and she can’t, she just can’t fuck it up.

After what feels like both forever and barely a second, Jester touches Beau’s arm lightly. “Do you know how to dance?”

Beau probably shouldn’t be surprised by anything Jester says by now, but she somehow always is anyway. She’s got pretty good at running with it though, and it so often ends up somewhere interesting. “Yeah. I… yeah, I had to learn, when I was a kid.”

There are so many memories Beau hates, but dancing isn’t one of them. She’d had to be dragged to it the first time, but in the end there had been such joy in the physicality of it. The long, graceful motions and the short, sharp ones. The ways it taught her to know her body, to control every position, every tiny movement. It was a lot like fighting would eventually be, when she got to it.

“Come dance with me, Beau.”

Standing in the circle of Jester’s arms with the breeze whipping through their hair and the wine-dark sea stretching on forever, Beau can think of nothing she would rather do. Jester hums under her breath, the faint memory of a tune that Beau can’t quite place, and they take a step, then another, finding their balance, working out their rhythm together, until suddenly they’re dancing, there on the sand, under the moonlight, little glimmers sparkling on the tips of the waves, and the smell of salt air and the sweetness of Jester’s skin is intoxicating.

She finds herself grinning, takes Jester’s hand and spins her so her skirt flies out and brushes Beau’s legs. Jester starts giggling and spins Beau in turn and Beau laughs too, then draws in a sharp breath as her toes hit cold water at the edge of the sea. Their steps kick spray up their legs until an unexpected wave has them in up to their shins and Beau hangs onto Jester out of some deep instinct, widening her stance to keep her feet in the sudden rush.

Jester is… Jester is really fucking close again, and she’s digging her fingers into Beau’s arm to balance herself, sending a little shock of pain through Beau’s still-healing bruises. Beau gasps, short and sharp, and maybe she does want to risk fucking this friendship up. Maybe it’s worth it, because her heart is racing and all that seems to matter in the world is the soft, solid warmth of Jester’s body against hers, Jester’s wide eyes sparkling in the darkness. Maybe she’s not wrong.

She doesn’t have the chance to try. Jester leans forward instead, and kisses Beau.

It takes a moment for Beau’s brain to catch up with what’s going on. She gapes like a fish against Jester’s mouth, before getting ahold of herself and kissing Jester back. Jester tastes sweet, just like Beau imagined she would, and her mouth is gentle but insistent, and hell, Beau thinks her heart might just hammer its way out of her chest. She’s kissed her fair share of women, maybe more than her fair share if she’s being honest, but she’s not sure she’s ever been taken this much by surprise.

When they part, Beau finds she has no idea what to say, but Jester is grinning at her, and she’s grinning back like an idiot.

“Uh. Wow,” is what comes out, eventually, which makes Jester laugh again, and Beau summons up all her courage and kisses her again, and this time she likes to think she manages to put a bit more finesse into the effort.

After a while, the incoming tide threatens to knock them both off their feet, and they head back up the beach. Jester doesn’t let go of Beau’s hand, and Beau is in no hurry to dissuade her.

“I guess we should go back to camp,” Jester says, lacing her fingers tighter through Beau’s. “It’s really late.”

Beau thinks about her unfinished practice. She thinks about her resolve never to be too slow again. She thinks about her sleeping friends. She thinks about sleeping next to them, about dreaming again.

_Yasha, buried deep in the cold ground next to Molly. Jester, just lying there, dead on the floor, with her eyes dull and empty._

“You need to sleep too, Beau.”

Beau is pretty sure none of Jester’s spells let her read minds. Pretty sure. “What?”

“You won’t be any use in a fight if you don’t sleep. And if something attacks us while you’re sleeping, I’ll fight it for you until you wake up. And then we’ll kill it together.”

Beau smiles, just a bit. “Thanks, Jester.”

By the time they get back to camp, tiredness has draped itself over Beau like a thick blanket. Caduceus, on watch, waves absently as they pass into the enclosure of Caleb’s spell and pick their way to their bedrolls, careful not to disturb anyone. Jester’s bedroll is almost always next to Beau’s, Beau realises now, watching her drag it just a little bit closer before lying down.

She’s close enough that Beau can hear her breathing as she drifts to sleep. Close enough that her hand settles on Beau’s upper arm, like it’s meant to be there. Close enough that Beau can feel the heat of her and take an easy sort of comfort from it.

Beau falls asleep faster than she expects to, and though her nightmares are still waiting for her there, dark and violent and unwelcome, they’re maybe a little less pervasive than they were before. When she wakes, she feels a little more refreshed than she has for a while.

***

The next day is kind of fucking weird.

It’s mostly just really _normal_. They all get up, and do the things they do, and get back on the road, and Jester doesn’t say anything to Beau about the kiss, and Beau doesn’t say anything to Jester, and like, maybe she fucking imagined it.

And maybe she’s imagining that Jester is quieter than usual, that she isn’t chatting at much with Nott in the back of the cart, that there’s a strange tension in the flick of her tail and the corners of her mouth.

Maybe she’s imagining it, but an odd spark flares in Jester’s eyes when they stop for a break and Jester asks if Beau wants to spar with her. Beau stops fiddling with the hem of her cloak, jumps to her feet and follows Jester a short distance from the others.

Shit’s still fucking weird, but this Beau can do. Putting her staff safely to one side, she gathers her thoughts, considers where to start, and looks Jester over speculatively. “It’s hard to fight in skirts,” she tells her.

Jester smooths her dress over her thighs. “It’ll be ok. I’ve got pretty good at keeping it out of the way.” She raises an eyebrow, grins wide. “If you want to see me without my dress on Beau, you’ll have to wait until we’re alone.”

Beau feels a blush spread across her cheeks, and it’s ridiculous, because they’ve been roommates since they met and though it’s good manners to turn away, Beau has caught glimpses of Jester changing her clothes out of the corner of her eye a hundred times now. “I, uh, huh?”

Jester’s grin gets, if anything, even wider. She balls her fists and raises them in front of her, making little jabbing motions. “Are you going to teach me how to punch you in the face or what?”

And Beau is laughing, because Jester can always make her laugh, no matter what else is going on. She takes one of Jester’s hands, warm in her own, and moves it into the right position, explaining the stance as she goes.

Jester learns fast, it turns out, and Beau isn’t surprised. She’s also actually really fucking strong, Beau thinks she might actually be almost as strong as Yasha, definitely stronger that Beau, but she’s not naturally as quick to react as Beau is, her motions not as precise. Caught up in the lesson, Beau only spends some of the time admiring the way Jester moves, the roll of her shoulders and turn of her hips. Only flushes a tiny bit when she puts her hands on Jester’s waist to steady her.

After a while, Caleb comes to get them to let them know they should start moving again if they want to make town by nightfall. Jester thanks Beau for the lesson with a smile that could take down whole armies, and Beau is left staring helplessly after her as she skips back to the cart.

Caleb stands with her for a moment, watching Jester leave, his face unreadable. “Beauregard, you know, you and Jester…”

“Caleb.” Beau doesn’t bother to glare at him. She wipes the sweat off her forehead, and picks her staff up off the ground. “Shut the fuck up.”

Caleb raises both hands. “Ok. Ok.”

They walk back to the others in companionable silence.

***

Sharing a room has never felt weird before and she’s damned if it’s going to be weird now. All the same, maybe she stays at the bar just a little longer than she otherwise would, nursing a single drink and flatly ignoring the bartender’s hopeful offers of another.

It’s not that she’s trying to avoid anything exactly, but by the time she finally drains her glass maybe Jester will be asleep and then she can put off figuring out whatever the hell this is until tomorrow. Or the next day. Or something. Beau has always been real good at putting shit off.

When she finally heads upstairs, Beau finds Jester sitting on her bed, still fully dressed, her pen scratching a series of intricate loops in a bright blue ink she bought recently. She smiles up at Beau, laying the book aside. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Beau replies, ever the wordsmith. She casts about for a topic of conversation that isn’t _hey, so about that kissing thing on the beach_. “Your, um, your right hook is going to need some work. It’s weaker than the left.” _Oh great, yeah, that was smooth._

“Oh, ok, thank you, Beau.”

Beau realises she’s staring at the floor but she can’t quite make herself look at Jester. Damn it, she’s sure she’s usually better at this. “Uh, do you want to practice it? I could show you now…”

She hears rather than sees Jester stand up and walk over to her, finally managing to look up when Jester puts a firm hand on each of her shoulders. “Maybe tomorrow, ok?” Jester says. “There is time for fighting and there is time for relaxing, and it’s important to do both, you know?”

Beau nods. Now that she’s looked into Jester’s eyes, she couldn’t look away if she wanted to.

“Do you want to dance, Beau?” Jester asks, and before Beau can reply, she kisses her.

It’s different this time than last. More… intentional, somehow, and Beau catches on faster, which helps. When Jester pulls back a little, Beau leans in and catches her mouth again and she feels Jester grin against her lips, wrapping her tail around Beau’s leg so that Beau gives a little gasp of surprise.

She thinks, fleetingly, that maybe she could kiss Jester forever, and keep on being surprised. And then the thought is pushed straight out of her head, along with any others, and only kissing is left, deeper now, Jester’s sharp teeth nipping at her lip, wandering hands and racing heart.

The backs of Beau’s legs hit the edge of her bed and she sits down, pulling a very willing Jester into her lap, enjoying the warm weight of her. “We’re, uh, we’re really doing this, huh?” she manages to say, one hand buried in Jester’s hair and the other finding the softness of her thigh under the edge of her skirt.

Jester isn’t grinning now. Her eyes are wide and there’s a waver in her voice that Beau wasn’t expecting. “I think we are,” she says. “Do you want to?”

Beau can’t find words to tell her even half how much she wants to. “ _Fuck_ yeah,” is what she says, and she can tell by the quirk of Jester’s eyebrow that Jester understands.

“Good, me too,” Jester assures her, an almost predatory gleam in her eyes, and she leans down for another bruising kiss.

A little time later, both wearing significantly less clothing than they were before, something important occurs to Beau, even though she’s pretty distracted by what Jester’s doing to her neck. She doesn’t know how to ask, so she just does. “You… you’ve done this before, right?”

Jester presses another kiss to the hollow of Beau’s throat and Beau shivers when she lifts her mouth away long enough to reply. “Done what?”

“You know. Sex.”

“Oh! Yes, of course.” Jester pauses, considers a moment. “But never with someone who was also my friend.”

“Oh.” Beau finds she’s smiling and Jester’s smiling back at her. “Cool. Yeah. That’s cool.”

And then Jester refinds the path she was kissing down the length of Beau’s body, and _oh fuck yes_ , and Beau doesn’t think about much else at all for a while.

***

Beau sleeps without dreaming, without waking up in horror and cold sweat. She sleeps with Jester solid and comfortable in her arms and she wakes with Jester’s leg draped over hers and Jester’s nose buried in her shoulder, a tangle of blue hair tickling her chin.

She blinks a few times, and she grins to herself, and she stretches lazily. Pressed to her side, Jester shifts and mumbles something incoherent.

“Hey,” Beau says, softly. She knows she’s still grinning like an idiot but fuck it, no one else is here to see. She navigates not getting poked in the face by a horn and kisses the top of Jester’s head.

Jester looks up at her, her face creased and dopey with sleep and really fucking beautiful. “Good morning, Beau,” she says. “I like waking up in your bed.”

Beau props herself up on her elbows and looks down at Jester. “You can keep doing it.” She wishes she had Fjord’s way with words. Shit, she’d take anyone’s but her own right now. “Uh. You know, if you want.”

“I would like that.”

 _Ok. Cool. Awesome._ Beau feels like she could take on the whole world, anything at all, just let her at it. She could fight a damn dragon right now.

She lets out an embarrassing shriek as Jester, properly awake now, knocks her arms out from under her and straddles her hips, pinning her to the bed. Radiating triumph, Jester leans down and kisses Beau hard on the mouth, and Beau, held firmly in place, could _definitely_ get used to this.

“You sure you want to keep teaching me to fight, Beau?” Jester murmurs, her breath against Beau’s cheek making her shiver. “I’ll probably learn how to beat you.”

Beau bucks her hips under Jester, almost dislodging her and Jester has to grab onto the headboard and swish her tail frantically to keep her balance. “I’d like to see you try,” Beau tells her and Jester’s peal of laughter is bright and glorious in the quiet morning air.

“Hey Jester,” Beau says, her whole self filled with a wild and new elation. “Want to dance?”

***

It’s some weeks later when Yasha rejoins them, in another tavern by another dusty roadside, a very long way from where they started out.

There’s a band playing, and they’re better than they could be but worse than they might be, and when Jester grabs Beau’s hand and tugs her out into the middle of the room, Beau’s feet start moving of their own accord. They dance a full circle, and then another, before swinging by their own table again.

Breathless, Jester reaches out a hand to Yasha, her other holding tight to Beau’s. “Come dance with us, Yasha?”

Yasha shakes her head, but there’s a small smile playing around the corners of her mouth. “I don’t know how to dance.”

Beau looks at Yasha, and at Jester, reaches out and takes Yasha’s other hand. “We could teach you?” she offers.

“Yes,” Yasha stares back at them both, with a new sort of look in her eyes. “I would like that.”

Beau reaches up on tiptoes, and plants a quick kiss on Yasha’s cheek. Beside her, Jester does the same, kissing just under Yasha’s ear, and Yasha blushes furiously.

It occurs to Beau, holding tight to each of their hands, that Molly would approve. They’ll take care of each other, all of them, and maybe it will be enough.


End file.
